Rob Sequin | Havana Journal

New Jersey state lawmakers are planning to introduce a resolution calling on President Barack Obama and Congress to pressure Cuba to return FBI fugitive Assata Shakur who murdered a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.

JoAnne Chesimard was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life for murder but escaped from the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in 1979. She was convicted of murdering State Trooper Werner Foerster and other related crimes. The U.S. Justice Department has offered a $1 million reward since 2005 for her capture.

This is an undated picture provided by the New Jersey State Police showing Assata Shakur - the former Joanne Chesimard - who was put on a U.S. government terrorist watch list on May 2, 2005. On the same day, New Jersey officials announced a $1 million reward for her capture. A member of the Black Liberation Army, Shakur, 57, was convicted in 1973 of killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster. She escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba. AP FILE PHOTO

AP Photo/FBI, FileJoanne Chesimard is seen in, from left: a 1973, 1979, and 1982 file photo

Senators Sean Kean and Fred Madden intend to introduce a resolution calling on the United States to withhold normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba until Chesimard is extradited from Cuba to the United States. The Senators said President Obama’s move to ease sanctions against Cuba is an opportunity to bring back Chesimard.

The senators are expected to be joined by State Troopers Fraternal Association President David Jones, New Jersey State PBA President Anthony Wieners, New Jersey State Troopers Non-Commissioned Officers Association President Dennis Hallion and New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police President Ed Brannigan when they introduce the resolution.

I heard or read that she is now in Venezuela?

you don’t understand what black people went through back then she did not murder a state trooper she didnt muder any one. right on sister keep your head up.

It could be much easier for the US government to go to Philly and get the head of police, mayor, fire chief, all of whom allowed 11 MOVE members, (4 children) to be burnt to death in their home, after being firebombed by a police chopper, just for being different or, any of those police who murdered Diallo in his hallway with 19 shots, or Illoner Bumpers, an 84 year old grandma, shot 4 times in her livingroom in the Bronx, or the perverts who sodomized a Haitian migrant in a Brooklyn police station, or the ones who shot a 90 year old quadriplegic in his wheelchair in Miami, the monsters who choked to death a 14 year old autistic kid in Jacksonville and probably me, before the day is over, only for walking while being black.  Wrogs can never be justified, but law is represented by a scale and that should be applied to this and thousands other known acquittals, when the victimizer is not black.

Some of these comments, completely ridiculous. I hate that it still surprises me that folks could be so simple, in such a complex world. Today, maybe more than ever, the issue of “capturing” Assata and bringing her back to some poor semblance of a justice system that fails us all, has never been less necessary than today. Today, when we have so, so much more that needs to be addressed on such a grand scale. The glaring inequalities that laid the foundation for this situation in the first place.

yes, racism is still relevant in the justice system as well as OVERWHELMINGLY relevant in daily social dynamics. do any of you read books?
Did any of you bother to read the book she wrote on her experience? If nothing else, to at least have some sort of insight into a perspective you claim to be your enemy, your terrorist?

yes, the book is good too.

yes, actually, the action of “rounding people up” who have been at the time deemed supposed “terrorist” has ALWAYS resulted in a changing government, and a changing people. And it always will.

Is anyone else tired and broken from living in a country that CONSTANTLY finds itself on the trigger side of the gun? On the wrong side of the history books?

what just because somebody get’s CONVICTED of something it has to mean that they actually did the crime? You can’t really be that naive, that brain washed; by such an unintelligent media at that.

And finally, NO,NO NO, NO….Assata is not and was never Tupac Shakurs mother. Shock of all shocks there’s a lot of UNTRUE information out here on the internet. And shock of all shocks having the same last name doesn’t grant an automatic familial relation.

I wonder if there would be such confusion on that specific topic if two white folks with the same normative, generic last name?

I’d venture probably not.